Five Words
by AllIsButToys
Summary: In the end, it takes just five words to get through to him.


**Five Words**

There had been very few moments in his life when Remus Lupin had felt as low as he did at that point in time.

She had said that his illness didn't matter but when it became clear that her friend would never accept him, that she would be shunned from society because of him their plans to simply elope together had crumbled into dust. There was a war coming, they both knew it, but she was unwilling to give up on the dream of living a normal life. The implication that that statement always held was that he wasn't normal and he had no part in her plans, despite her attempts to tell him otherwise.

She may have loved the man she saw but Remus had to wonder now whether she had ever really known him at all. She looked at him with whatever lens had suited her purpose at the time, her perfectly 'normal', human boyfriend, or the werewolf who threatened to mess up her vision of her future.

Maybe it was just as well it had fallen through, he thought as he poured another drink. Better to lose her now than going through the messy procedure of divorce in the wizarding world. What if they had had children? No, he told himself, really it was better to give up on relationships completely. There was a war coming and he had resigned himself to being alone a long time ago.

/-/

The war was over. Both he and Nymphadora had survived, and now she was involved with Charlie Weasley. _A young, healthy man_, he noted bitterly, _what did she ever see in me?_

It wasn't that he still fancied himself in love with her, he had fallen out of love with her fairly quickly after she revealed her true nature but it made the now thankfully infrequent Order meeting uncomfortable for him. Everyone there knew of the relationship they had once shared and he had doubt that most of them knew why exactly she had ended the relationship.

The one place he had felt a sense of belonging was now tainted.

It was during those many retreats to the library at Grimmuald Place that he had become closer to Hermione Granger.

The excuse she always gave was that she used the opportunity of houseguests to slip away from her two housemates while they were otherwise engaged. Remus accepted this reason the first few times he happened across her sitting in the leather armchair by the fire but after a month or so he began to doubt whether Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter required their female friend's presence as much as she suggested.

Then again, he couldn't think of any other valid reason as to why she would so willingly sit in near silence with him for hours at a time, happy to simply read or to chat depending on his mood.

After six months. He decided to just be grateful for the company.

/-/

It was about a year after the end of the war that Remus finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to Hermione Granger. Their friendship had passed beyond simple meetings in the library to lunches in the pub and even the odd film in the cinema (much to Hermione's apparent delight, as many of her magical friends didn't see the appeal of movies). Despite the age gap Remus found that they had fallen into an easy camaraderie. He was sure that her advanced level of maturity had something to do with it but she seemed to have evened out quite a lot after the war. Without the threat of danger around every corner for herself and the boys Hermione seemed far more relaxed and more confident in herself than he had ever seen her before.

General her more easy-going nature didn't apply itself to her work in the Ministry though, as she worked her way up in the newly renamed Department for the Rights of Magical Beings. Remus knew that she worked harder than anyone else in order to secure new legislation on the rights of house elves, centaurs and werewolves. It had never been a bone of contention between them until, at one of their regular meetings in the library, Hermione had taken one look at the book he was reading and let out a derisive snort.

'You're not reading that absolute rubbish, are you?'

Remus peered at her over the top of his glasses, confused by her tone. 'Why not?'

She must have only arrived home from work, he realised. She was still wearing a grey skirt and a red blouse as she kicked off her shoes threw her bag onto the armchair opposite him. The traitorous part of his brain thought that she looked gorgeous while the realistic one told him that he was too old, too poor and too dangerous for anyone as perfect as Hermione Jean Granger.

Though the noise of the rest of her houseguests drifted up through the floor Hermione was studying him speculatively. 'It's utter crap, Remus. It's one author's fanatical perspective on society.'

'That's what people used to say about _Mein Kampf_,' he muttered, immediately regretting the comparison when he saw that dangerous flash in her eyes. He had no right to do so. 'Anyway,' he redirected, 'it's not only one person's view, Hermione. There are lots of people out there who share his view.'

They had both read the book and Remus was only too aware of people's reaction to him and his kind. They were monsters, dangerous, inhuman.

'The way that book describes lycanthropy sufferers...'

It was only something he had only begun to notice as they grew closer but Remus couldn't remember the last time Hermione had said the word.

'Werewolves, Hermione,' he found himself saying, calling her out on it for the first time, 'I am a werewolf.'

'No you're not!' she shouted and he looked at her as though she might have gone slightly insane.

'Of course I'm a…'

'Your identity shouldn't be defined by an _illness_, Remus!' Her toffee coloured eyes were gleaming dangerous as she stepped closer to where he sat. 'There's so much more to you.' She knelt down and pulled the book out of his hands swiftly, throwing it onto the fire despite his noise of protestation.

He barely had time to register what was happening before Hermione had ripped the front of his shirt open, two of his buttons rolling onto the floor.

'What are you doing?' He hissed in anger and surprise.

The young woman kneeling in front of him placed the tips of her fingers against the raised skin at the left side of his neck, the mark that had made him what he was.

'This,' she said, tapping her middle finger against the scar gently, 'this isn't everything you are.'

/-/

It had taken five words to form the crack in his defences. Five words whispered in his ear against the tide of prejudice and hate that he had suffered all his life.

Years from that day when their young daughter had asked Remus when he first knew he loved Hermione he had answered without any hesitation. Even now, nearly ten years later it wasn't the traditional pattern of dates and declarations of love that had opened Remus's heart to his wife. In those words he saw a woman who had never judged him and who saw both the man and the wolf but who recognised which was the real Remus John Lupin.

And every month, as she watched him leave her to answer the call of the moon, the last thing she said to him was still those five words.

'This isn't everything you are.'

**Author's Note**

I just can't leave these two alone, so many possibilities…

This story was inspired by the Snow Patrol song, 'This Isn't Everything You Are'. If you haven't heard it, go and listen. I have included some of the lyrics below.

I own neither the song nor anything to do with Potter-verse.

_Don't keel over now_

_Don't keel over_

_Don't keel over now_

_Don't keel over._

_And in one little moment, _

_It all implodes_

_This isn't everything you are_

_Breathe deeply in the silence, no sudden moves_

_This isn't everything you are_

_Just take the hand that's offered_

_And hold on tight_

_This isn't everything you are_

_There's joy upon from here, I_

_I know there is_

_This isn't everything you are._


End file.
